Some sixty years ago, two heroic men from Western Province in the Solomon Islands were working as scouts for the Americans during the second world war. While on one of their missions they came across a chap known as J F Kennedy injured and stranded on an island in what is now known as the “Kennedy Island” in the Solomon Islands.

Kennedy’s boat, PT109, had been hit by a Japanese torpedo and Kennedy was left for dead. The two men, Eroni Kumana and fellow allied scout Biku Gasa, take Kennedy under their wing. Using a carved SOS message on a coconut fruit, Kennedy let adrift the message which was eventually picked up by an American warship. Kennedy was subsequently picked up and returned to his homeland.

Few years later the same man was to become the most powerful man in the world, now known as the 35th President of the United States of America, J F Kennedy. During his inauguration, a grateful JF Kennedy invited both men to the celebration, however, they were turned down at the immigration authority primarily because they could not speak English. The only news they were to hear two years later was that of the assassination.

Now in their mid to late seventies, both man are still alive and enjoying the peace that had been fought hard for by the allies and the natives of the Solomon Islands. Max Kennedy (nephew of JF Kennedy) visited the Solomon Islands recently and met both men.